Jeremiah D Hackett

PMID: 14761653;Abstract:

Dinoflagellate algae are important primary producers and of significant ecological and economic impact because of their ability to form "red tides" [1]. They are also models for evolutionary research because of an unparalleled ability to capture photosynthetic organelles (plastids) through endosymbiosis [2]. The nature and extent of the plastid genome in the dominant perdinin-containing dinoflagellates remain, however, two of the most intriguing issues in plastid evolution. The plastid genome in these taxa is reduced to single-gene minicircles [3, 4] encoding an incomplete (until now 15) set of plastid proteins. The location of the remaining photosynthetic genes is unknown. We generated a data set of 6,480 unique expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium tamarense (for details, see the Experimental Procedures in the Supplemental Data) to find the missing plastid genes and to understand the impact of endosymbiosis on genome evolution. Here we identify 48 of the non-minicircle-encoded photosynthetic genes in the nuclear genome of A. tamarense, accounting for the majority of the photosystem. Fifteen genes that are always found on the plastid genome of other algae and plants have been transferred to the nucleus in A. tamarense. The plastid-targeted genes have red and green algal origins. These results highlight the unique position of dinoflagellates as the champions of plastid gene transfer to the nucleus among photosynthetic eukaryotes.

In this paper, we focus on dinoflagellate ecology, toxin production, fossil record, and a molecular phylogenetic analysis of hosts and plastids. Of ecological interest are the swimming and feeding behavior, bioluminescence, and symbioses of dinoflagellates with corals. The many varieties of dinoflagellate toxins, their biological effects, and current knowledge of their origin are discussed. Knowledge of dinoflagellate evolution is aided by a rich fossil record that can be used to document their emergence and diversification. However, recent biogeochemical studies indicate that dinoflagellates may be much older than previously believed. A remarkable feature of dinoflagellates is their unique genome structure and gene regulation. The nuclear genomes of these algae are of enormous size, lack nucleosomes, and have permanently condensed chromosomes. This chapter reviews the current knowledge of gene regulation and transcription in dinoflagellates with regard to the unique aspects of the nuclear genome. Previous work shows the plastid genome of typical dinoflagellates to have been reduced to single-gene minicircles that encode only a small number of proteins. Recent studies have demonstrated that the majority of the plastid genome has been transferred to the nucleus, which makes the dinoflagellates the only eukaryotes to encode the majority of typical plastid genes in the nucleus. The evolution of the dinoflagellate plastid and the implications of these results for understanding organellar genome evolution are discussed.

The importance of 'eco-evolutionary feedbacks' in natural systems is currently unclear. Here, we advance a general hypothesis for a particular class of eco-evolutionary feedbacks with potentially large, long-lasting impacts in complex ecosystems. These eco-evolutionary feedbacks involve traits that mediate important interactions with abiotic and biotic features of the environment and a self-driven reversal of selection as the ecological impact of the trait varies between private (small scale) and public (large scale). Toxic algal blooms may involve such eco-evolutionary feedbacks due to the emergence of public goods. We review evidence that toxin production by microalgae may yield 'privatised' benefits for individual cells or colonies under pre- and early-bloom conditions; however, the large-scale, ecosystem-level effects of toxicity associated with bloom states yield benefits that are necessarily 'public'. Theory predicts that the replacement of private with public goods may reverse selection for toxicity in the absence of higher level selection. Indeed, blooms often harbor significant genetic and functional diversity: bloom populations may undergo genetic differentiation over a scale of days, and even genetically similar lineages may vary widely in toxic potential. Intriguingly, these observations find parallels in terrestrial communities, suggesting that toxic blooms may serve as useful models for eco-evolutionary dynamics in nature. Eco-evolutionary feedbacks involving the emergence of a public good may shed new light on the potential for interactions between ecology and evolution to influence the structure and function of entire ecosystems.

Abstract:

Phylomes (comprehensive sets of gene phylogenies for organisms) are built to investigate fundamental questions in genomics and evolutionary biology, such as those pertaining to the detection and characterization of horizontal gene transfer in microbes. To address these questions, phylome construction demands rigorous yet efficient phylogenetic methods. Currently, many sequence alignment and tree-building models can analyze several thousands of genes in a high-throughput manner. However, the phylogenetics is complicated by variability in sequence divergence and different taxon sampling among genes. In addition, homolog selection for automated approaches often relies on arbitrary sequence similarity thresholds that are likely inappropriate for all genes in a genome. To investigate the effects of automated homolog selection on the detection of horizontal gene transfer using phylogenomics, we constructed the phylome of a transcriptome assembly of Alexandrium tamarense, a microbial eukaryote with a history of horizontal and endosymbiotic gene transfer, using seven sequence similarity thresholds for selecting putative homologs to be included in phylogenetic analyses. We show that no single threshold recovered informative trees for the majority of A. tamarense unigenes compared to the pooled results from all pipeline iterations. As much as 29% of trees built could have misleading phylogenetic relationships that appear biased in favor of those otherwise indicative of horizontal gene transfer. Perhaps worse, nearly half of the unigenes were represented by a single tree built at just one threshold, making it difficult to assess the validity of phylogenetic relationships recovered in these cases. However, combining the results from several pipeline iterations maximizes the number of informative phylogenies. Moreover, when the same phylogenetic relationship for a given unigene is recovered in multiple pipeline iterations, conclusions regarding gene origin are more robust to methodological artifact. Using these methods, the majority of A. tamarense unigenes showed evolutionary relationships indicative of vertical inheritance. Nevertheless, many other unigenes revealed diverse phylogenetic associations, suggestive of possible gene transfer. This analysis suggests that caution should be used when interpreting the results from phylogenetic pipelines implementing a single similarity threshold. Our approach is a practical method to mitigate the problems associated with automated sequence selection in phylogenomics. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

Dinoflagellates are important aquatic primary producers and cause "red tides." The most widespread plastid (photosynthetic organelle) in these algae contains the unique accessory pigment peridinin. This plastid putatively originated via a red algal secondary endosymbiosis and has some remarkable features, the most notable being a genome that is reduced to 1-3 gene minicircles with about 14 genes (out of an original 130-200) remaining in the organelle and a nuclear-encoded proteobacterial Form II Rubisco. The "missing" plastid genes are relocated to the nucleus via a massive transfer unequaled in other photosynthetic eukaryotes. The fate of these characters is unknown in a number of dinoflagellates that have replaced the peridinin plastid through tertiary endosymbiosis. We addressed this issue in the fucoxanthin dinoflagellates (e.g., Karenia brevis) that contain a captured haptophyte plastid. Our multiprotein phylogenetic analyses provide robust support for the haptophyte plastid replacement and are consistent with a red algal origin of the chromalveolate plastid. We then generated an expressed sequence tag (EST) database of 5,138 unique genes from K. brevis and searched for nuclear genes of plastid function. The EST data indicate the loss of the ancestral peridinin plastid characters in K. brevis including the transferred plastid genes and Form II Rubisco. These results underline the remarkable ability of dinoflagellates to remodel their genomes through endosymbiosis and the considerable impact of this process on cell evolution.